Thanks for such a dazzling presentation…I am 85 and have played this ETUDE for more than 40 years, and yet you have illumined my mind with your incisive and detailed pinpointing of these myriad events.
The section near the end of Paganini Rhapsody where the pianist modulates to the "wrong" key during the cadenza, and then is "corrected" by the orchestra, is one of the best examples of musical humor to be found anywhere IMO.
I agree, although the very last phrase of that Rhapsody is always the thing that I think about whenever I hear about how Rachmaninoff was always so depressive in his music…
That exoticism of hinting at G minor within a D major context reminds me of the central section of his G minor prelude which has similar exoticism - keeps the G minor key signature but sounds like D major albeit with a lot of Eb and Bb. And I love the general topic of this video because the emotional range and variety of Rachmaninoff's work is a little underrated. The early piece Polichinelle is based on Punch and Judy - of course it's got lovely lyricism but I feel like people underplay how humorous the "dramatic" parts are. They're meant to be fun faux-drama, not heavy drama!
This presentation was quite a revelation for me as I had never considered Rachmaninoff to be such an ingenious composer that he might inject humour into a piano composition. There again, I must confess to not being so familiar with this particular D major work from his Op. 39 Etude-Tableau. What I was expecting, of course, was that your performance would be absolutely spellbinding, Cole. It was: bravo! I am always saddened to think that Rachmaninoff sensed a loss of popularity because he felt "like a ghost wandering in a world grown alien" where he could not "cast out the old way of writing" and "acquire the new". What I have always felt concurred with my deeply held view of music was his belief that "Music comes straight from the heart and talks only to the heart: it is Love". Though in this case . . . love with a mischievous smile and a wink to the audience.
What a fine video Cole ! I’m amazed you can pump these out weekly - there is an awful lot of work in these. Time to analyse, time to markup, time to write commentary, time to learn and record the music, and such high quality performances. Something I wonder with these top flight composers, is : does the music just pour out of them and they just write it down, or do they plan and work out in tiny detail. Did R have total awareness of what he was doing (ie all the things you point out) as he was doing them, or did he write it down and then realise how clever he’d been! At some point composers have a tool kit which they just use, perhaps without total analytical process.
Thank you, Neil! In answer to your question I think all composers work a little differently. Composers that have a more transparent less complicated style often are able to write things down from their head almost without seeming to need intervention, whereas others (famously Beethoven) painstakingly craft all of their motives and ideas, sometimes over long periods. I’m sure all composers have had times when they just wrote something very quickly and also some times when they had to really slave over a piece. Even someone who was supposedly such a facile writer like Felix Mendelssohn sometimes had to go through many revisions: that’s what happened with his fourth symphony. I think with most compositions there’s always at least a little bit of tweaking and revising that goes on, it just depends how much.
And in answer to the second part of your question: I try to only point out things that at least COULD have been intentional on the part of the composer, i.e. things that are immediately audible. I’m pretty sure most of the other things I’m pointing out here, even the slightly more abstract things like the harmonies, were probably things that Rachmaninoff was aware of. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he had to spend a lot of time thinking about them, just that it was his practice to make his pieces very cohesive in those sorts of ways.
One listen to the Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini is enough to show that at least a few inches of that 6.5 foot scowl were capable of a cheery grin or two! Or the first of the symphonic dances. For us pianists, his transcription of Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream is faithful to the breezy wit of the piece and his Corelli variations have some of the slyest, cheekist modulations I've met inside non-serial music. Or how about the depiction of the wolf in his Red Riding Hood Etude (which, in my attempts, comes off more as a hippo with a gammy leg). It's not the mocking, obvious humour of Prokofiev/Shostakovich/Schnittke with their distorted marches, trombone sneezes and etc. But there is something deeply funny about the way it slides your expectations about without over-egging the clowning.
Great analysis and performance! I'd just be curious to hear your thoughts about Rachmaninoff's notational choices, such as notating passages an eighth note off for several bars, the beaming that shows different beat structures, the unmarked 3/4 bars, or unmarked tuplets (which I don't think show up in this piece, but I see pretty regularly in Rachmaninoff and Scriabin especially.) On one hand, they sometimes throw me off a bit and seem unnecessarily confusing, but I guess they are normally pretty clear in context, and sometimes reveal interesting details (like the displaced rhythm at the recapitulation here.)
I think all the facets that you mentioned are aspects of the underlying complications that are always present in Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. I always think of Michael Finnissy talking about letting the vegetation grow wild in his music. I think there is a similar approach with the late Russian Romantics. They’re trying to get something in between improvisation and composition, something that clearly is well organized, but at the same time has this asymmetrical, naturalistic feeling to it. The thing that’s really interesting about all these asymmetries is that once you get used to them, you realize that they are actually very natural extensions of the underlying structure and so are not as difficult as they seem to realize. But at first, they are very hard to look at! It kind of reminds me of transcriptions of jazz improvisations. it looks so complex on paper but actually it’s always very natural to play. All the weird stuff in Rachmaninoff and Scriabin like that has its basis in improvisation, so it’s actually very natural once you figure out what they’re doing.
I’m not sure, but I did tweak the settings in the program that I’m using to get the best possible range of sound, so maybe that’s why it sounds unusually brilliant sounding for a keyboard. I guess I’m used to it so I’m not aware that it necessarily is!
Well, Op. 33 no 6 is called “the fair” in Respighi’s orchestration. I thought I remembered that Rachmaninoff described Op. 33 no 9 as a crowd scene, but I might be misremembering. I don’t have all my books with me right now, but when they get here, I’ll check out the reference for that.
Rachmaninoff states that its character is similar to this Op.33 etude but resembles an oriental march. This can be found in the original letter to Respighi, as can be seen in Bertensson&Leyda pp. 262-263.
Completely non-musical observation - I love that lighting effect that you can get from a venetian blind at a particular angle. But I'm really here for the Rachmaninov.
Thanks for such a dazzling presentation…I am 85 and have played this ETUDE for more than 40 years, and yet you have illumined my mind with your incisive and detailed pinpointing of these myriad events.
The section near the end of Paganini Rhapsody where the pianist modulates to the "wrong" key during the cadenza, and then is "corrected" by the orchestra, is one of the best examples of musical humor to be found anywhere IMO.
I agree, although the very last phrase of that Rhapsody is always the thing that I think about whenever I hear about how Rachmaninoff was always so depressive in his music…
@@TheIndependentPianistThat last phrase is one of the funniest and best endings in all of music
Yeah the ending of the Rhapsody is extremely funny and probably one of the greatest possible ending to a concerto
That exoticism of hinting at G minor within a D major context reminds me of the central section of his G minor prelude which has similar exoticism - keeps the G minor key signature but sounds like D major albeit with a lot of Eb and Bb.
And I love the general topic of this video because the emotional range and variety of Rachmaninoff's work is a little underrated.
The early piece Polichinelle is based on Punch and Judy - of course it's got lovely lyricism but I feel like people underplay how humorous the "dramatic" parts are. They're meant to be fun faux-drama, not heavy drama!
Do you know any good recordings playing up the "faux-drama" not heavy drama of the Polichinelle? It seems like something quite difficult to pull off.
This presentation was quite a revelation for me as I had never considered Rachmaninoff to be such an ingenious composer that he might inject humour into a piano composition. There again, I must confess to not being so familiar with this particular D major work from his Op. 39 Etude-Tableau. What I was expecting, of course, was that your performance would be absolutely spellbinding, Cole. It was: bravo!
I am always saddened to think that Rachmaninoff sensed a loss of popularity because he felt "like a ghost wandering in a world grown alien" where he could not "cast out the old way of writing" and "acquire the new". What I have always felt concurred with my deeply held view of music was his belief that "Music comes straight from the heart and talks only to the heart: it is Love". Though in this case . . . love with a mischievous smile and a wink to the audience.
What a fine video Cole ! I’m amazed you can pump these out weekly - there is an awful lot of work in these. Time to analyse, time to markup, time to write commentary, time to learn and record the music, and such high quality performances.
Something I wonder with these top flight composers, is : does the music just pour out of them and they just write it down, or do they plan and work out in tiny detail. Did R have total awareness of what he was doing (ie all the things you point out) as he was doing them, or did he write it down and then realise how clever he’d been!
At some point composers have a tool kit which they just use, perhaps without total analytical process.
Thank you, Neil! In answer to your question I think all composers work a little differently. Composers that have a more transparent less complicated style often are able to write things down from their head almost without seeming to need intervention, whereas others (famously Beethoven) painstakingly craft all of their motives and ideas, sometimes over long periods. I’m sure all composers have had times when they just wrote something very quickly and also some times when they had to really slave over a piece. Even someone who was supposedly such a facile writer like Felix Mendelssohn sometimes had to go through many revisions: that’s what happened with his fourth symphony. I think with most compositions there’s always at least a little bit of tweaking and revising that goes on, it just depends how much.
And in answer to the second part of your question: I try to only point out things that at least COULD have been intentional on the part of the composer, i.e. things that are immediately audible. I’m pretty sure most of the other things I’m pointing out here, even the slightly more abstract things like the harmonies, were probably things that Rachmaninoff was aware of. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he had to spend a lot of time thinking about them, just that it was his practice to make his pieces very cohesive in those sorts of ways.
One listen to the Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini is enough to show that at least a few inches of that 6.5 foot scowl were capable of a cheery grin or two! Or the first of the symphonic dances. For us pianists, his transcription of Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream is faithful to the breezy wit of the piece and his Corelli variations have some of the slyest, cheekist modulations I've met inside non-serial music. Or how about the depiction of the wolf in his Red Riding Hood Etude (which, in my attempts, comes off more as a hippo with a gammy leg).
It's not the mocking, obvious humour of Prokofiev/Shostakovich/Schnittke with their distorted marches, trombone sneezes and etc. But there is something deeply funny about the way it slides your expectations about without over-egging the clowning.
Great examples! I agree he definitely doesn’t hit us over the head with his humor, but it’s always there and very slyly effective.
best execution of the contrasting figurations at 16:18, never quite heard it like this
Thank you so so much!
I love this etude, i will have to check out respighis orchestration.
Great analysis and performance! I'd just be curious to hear your thoughts about Rachmaninoff's notational choices, such as notating passages an eighth note off for several bars, the beaming that shows different beat structures, the unmarked 3/4 bars, or unmarked tuplets (which I don't think show up in this piece, but I see pretty regularly in Rachmaninoff and Scriabin especially.) On one hand, they sometimes throw me off a bit and seem unnecessarily confusing, but I guess they are normally pretty clear in context, and sometimes reveal interesting details (like the displaced rhythm at the recapitulation here.)
I think all the facets that you mentioned are aspects of the underlying complications that are always present in Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. I always think of Michael Finnissy talking about letting the vegetation grow wild in his music. I think there is a similar approach with the late Russian Romantics. They’re trying to get something in between improvisation and composition, something that clearly is well organized, but at the same time has this asymmetrical, naturalistic feeling to it. The thing that’s really interesting about all these asymmetries is that once you get used to them, you realize that they are actually very natural extensions of the underlying structure and so are not as difficult as they seem to realize. But at first, they are very hard to look at! It kind of reminds me of transcriptions of jazz improvisations. it looks so complex on paper but actually it’s always very natural to play. All the weird stuff in Rachmaninoff and Scriabin like that has its basis in improvisation, so it’s actually very natural once you figure out what they’re doing.
Hello mr Coll, how your keyboard reacts to so much forte marcato pesante sound?
I’m not sure, but I did tweak the settings in the program that I’m using to get the best possible range of sound, so maybe that’s why it sounds unusually brilliant sounding for a keyboard. I guess I’m used to it so I’m not aware that it necessarily is!
i think The Fair is a different etude from the op.33 set..
Well, Op. 33 no 6 is called “the fair” in Respighi’s orchestration. I thought I remembered that Rachmaninoff described Op. 33 no 9 as a crowd scene, but I might be misremembering. I don’t have all my books with me right now, but when they get here, I’ll check out the reference for that.
Rachmaninoff states that its character is similar to this Op.33 etude but resembles an oriental march. This can be found in the original letter to Respighi, as can be seen in Bertensson&Leyda pp. 262-263.
@@TheMinibruno that’s the reference I wanted to look at, thank you!
Completely non-musical observation - I love that lighting effect that you can get from a venetian blind at a particular angle. But I'm really here for the Rachmaninov.
It would be RachmaninOV. Thank you. No offense, please!
@@georgesandchopinnone taken! The composer himself spelled his name with the double f.
okay tchaikoffski
@@437composer hey take it up with Rachmaninoff!
@@TheIndependentPianist
"Touche!"🌠🥂🫡 🤝👏👍🙂🥂🌠